JPEG recipes

A recipe is a saved set of the camera's own picture settings. Load one and the JPEGs come out already looking a certain way, with no editing afterwards.

What a recipe changes, and what it doesn't

Recipes work on the JPEG the camera writes. They are applied as the picture is taken, not afterwards. Three consequences catch people out:

• Your RAW files keep everything. If you shoot RAW alongside JPEG, the RAW is untouched — the recipe is not baked into it. You can re-develop it in the camera later with a different look.
• There are only three custom slots. The GR stores your own settings in Custom1, Custom2 and Custom3. That is the whole reason recipe apps exist: people collect far more than three.
• Recipes don't transfer cleanly between models. A GR III recipe typed into a GR IV will not necessarily look the same. The processing changed between generations.

What each control does

This is the part recipe sites tend to skip. They give you numbers to type in; almost none explain what the numbers move. Ricoh's published parameter list, in plain English:

Colour

What the colours do.

Base Color

Which colour rendering the recipe starts from, before any adjustment.

Choose this first. Changing it later shifts the effect of everything else you have set.

Color Tone

Casts the whole image towards a colour.

Where the overall warmth or coolness of a look lives. Often the single control that makes a recipe recognisable.

Hue

Rotates every colour around the colour wheel.

• ▲ Shifts colours one way around the wheel — greens towards yellow, blues towards cyan.
• ▼ Shifts them the other way — greens towards blue, reds towards magenta.

Small moves only. This is how a recipe makes foliage look warm or a sky look cold without touching saturation.

RGB Tone (Highlight, Midtone, Shadow)

Adds a colour cast to bright, middle and dark areas separately.

The most powerful control here and the least used. Warm highlights with cool shadows is the split-toning that most "cinematic" looks are built on.

Saturation

How strong the colours are.

• ▲ Colours intensify. Reds and skies go first, and skin tones follow quickly.
• ▼ Colours drain towards grey. Taken far enough this becomes a desaturated look rather than a monochrome one.

The blunt instrument of colour. Most film-like recipes pull it slightly down rather than up, because saturated colour reads as digital.

Tone

Where the darks, mids and brights sit. Most of a look lives here.

Black Point

Where the darkest tone sits.

• ▲ Lifts black towards grey — the "matte" or "faded" effect.
• ▼ Crushes towards true black.

Lifting the black point is what most film-emulation recipes do first.

Contrast

The gap between the darkest and brightest parts.

• ▲ Blacks deepen and highlights brighten. Detail at both ends starts to disappear.
• ▼ The image flattens towards grey, which is the basis of most faded-film looks.

Lower it than instinct suggests. Flat files look wrong on the camera screen and right everywhere else.

Contrast (Highlight)

Contrast in the bright areas only.

• ▲ Bright areas separate more, at the risk of blowing out.
• ▼ Recovers detail in skies and white shirts.

Pull down to stop a bright day clipping without flattening the whole picture.

Contrast (Shadow)

Contrast in the dark areas only.

• ▲ Shadows deepen towards black.
• ▼ Shadows lift and open up. Lifted shadows are the other half of the faded-film look.

The pair of this and Contrast (Highlight) is where a look is built.

HDR Tone Level

How strongly the camera compresses a high-contrast scene into the picture.

• ▲ More detail retained at both ends, and a more processed look.
• ▼ A more conventional response.

Only appears when the HDR Tone image control is selected.

High/Low Key Adjustment

Biases the whole picture brighter or darker.

• ▲ Brighter, airier, more high-key.
• ▼ Darker and heavier.

A global mood control rather than an exposure correction — exposure compensation is the better tool for getting the brightness right.

White Point

Where the brightest tone sits.

• ▼ Pulls pure white down to off-white, which is what makes an image look printed rather than screen-lit.

Small adjustments. Together with Black Point this sets the range the picture occupies.

Texture

How the surface of the image reads.

Clarity

Contrast within the midtones — the sense of texture and bite.

• ▲ Surfaces look more defined and grittier.
• ▼ Everything smooths out, which flatters skin.

Distinct from Sharpness. Clarity works on areas, Sharpness on edges.

Grain Effect

Adds simulated film grain.

• ▲ More visible grain.
• ▼ Cleaner.

The most-reached-for shortcut to a film look, and the most overdone. Grain reads differently on a phone screen than in a print.

Shading

Darkens or lightens the corners — a vignette.

• ▲ Corners darken, pulling the eye inward.
• ▼ Corners lighten.

A little suggests a lens; a lot announces an effect.

Sharpness

How hard edges are drawn.

• ▲ Crisper, and at the top end visibly artificial with halos on high-contrast edges.
• ▼ Softer and more organic.

The GR lens is already sharp. Most recipes reduce this rather than raise it.

Black and white only

These appear when you start from a monochrome base.

Filter Effect

Simulates a coloured glass filter in front of a black-and-white image.

Changes how colours convert to grey. A red or orange filter darkens blue sky dramatically and lightens skin; a green filter lightens foliage. This is the control that most changes a black-and-white picture, and the one most often left alone.

Toning

Tints a monochrome picture towards a colour.

Sepia and selenium looks live here. Only available from a monochrome base.

Building your own

The controls that change a picture most are not the obvious ones. Saturation and Sharpness are what people reach for first; Black Point, Contrast (Shadow) and RGB Tone are what make a look recognisable. Lifting the black point alone accounts for most of what people mean by a faded film look.

Change one control at a time and shoot the same scene between changes. Judging two changes at once tells you nothing about either. And check your results somewhere other than the camera screen — a flat file looks wrong on a small bright display and right almost everywhere else.

Where to find recipes other people have made

All of these are free to browse. What each one is good for:

If you want one starting point rather than five, begin with the Cookbook — it is the largest archive and needs no account or app to browse.

Related

• Setting up your GR — where the custom slots live
• The app comparison — including the recipe apps
• Camera terms — if RAW, saturation or contrast need unpacking